I hated this book.

I hated that it was so disturbingly reminiscent of today that I actually felt a bit ill while reading some sections.

I hated that it made some weird sort of twisted sense.

I hated that at one point, I wished Offred were pregnant, because that is how she would be safe.

Sometimes the best books are the worst, because the reflection of society and humanity that they show you is too horrific to imagine but too real to ignore. There are obvious parallels to today's society, and societies across the world, to the point that it's eerie how much Atwood correctly predicted. Yes, it's speculative fiction, but we should have taken more notice.

There is so much to unpack in this book, and much of it about sexism, racism and homophobia, but something else that stuck out for me was the way that language and information is treated. In a world of both actual fake news and Trump-declared fake news, the things we read are what creates the divides in our society, but the way we find those things to read are dictated by an elaborate algorithm and advertising commissions. It can be difficult to know what to trust, and honestly, there are times that I wish I didn't have the ability to read anything that anyone had written.

Two more things that I want to touch upon; the first is that of context. Time and time again, the idea of context is raised in this book, and it's such an important one because it's how we justify our actions. It actually reminds me of a conversation I had today with a friend, when we were discussing different situations where 'free speech' is a justifiable reason to say something. There are things that we all say we would never do, but how many of them would we do in a different context? Context is the measurement to which we compare our ethics.

The other thing that really sprung out at me was the idea of freedom to vs freedom from. In a strange way it actually reminded me of the second Captain America film, and of everything that is done in the name of our safety. In today's society, this is nowhere as extreme as what is described in the book, but things such as governments' collection of our personal information in the name of safety is certainly concerning. It may be harmless, but it may lead to something else.

Needless to say, I will be thinking about this book for a long time to come. Yet another example of the right book at the right time, and now we need it more than ever.